Knightley and Son (9781619631540) (12 page)

Beecham loosened his tie and turned a shade paler. “To suggest that anything in the book might be inspiring criminal acts is clearly absurd,” he insisted.

“Is it?” asked Darkus. “There’s a rule in my business, which states that when all other factors have been eliminated, the one that remains must be the truth. However improbable it seems.”

Beecham’s eyes widened, then regained their even gaze. “I can try to pass your request along, but there’s no guarantee I’ll get a response.”

“Very well,” replied Darkus. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Beecham. And one more thing . . . if it’s not too much trouble, may I take you up on your offer of a soft beverage?”

“Of course.” He nodded in the direction of the door. “There’s a kitchen at the end of the corridor. And a variety of snacks if you’re hungry.”

“I never eat between meals.”

“I see,” said Beecham.

Darkus got up and walked to the door. Outside, Chloe sat in a cubicle, having listened in on the conversation via an intercom. She smiled efficiently at Darkus, who smiled back and straightened his jacket. “Don’t get lost,” she said pleasantly.

“I’ll do my best.”

Darkus took in the basic floor plan and deduced that the files must be stored within easy reach of Beecham’s office. He continued along the corridor under a row of dim spotlights, locating the kitchen . . . and an unmarked door.

Darkus reached into his pockets, put on a pair of leather gloves, and slowly turned the door handle. He found a narrow room lined with filing cabinets, all neatly ordered and alphabetized. Darkus moved quietly down the aisle until he reached the letter
C
.

He slid open the cabinet and located a large folder labeled
Chambers, A
. He leafed through the papers, finding several drafts of
The Code
, unbound and littered with notes and marks made in red pen. He glanced through, finding nothing more than spelling and grammatical errors and the occasional word change. He carefully removed a few pages of manuscript, laid them out on an adjacent cabinet, and trained his secure phone on them. The camera quickly captured the images. Then he pocketed the phone and replaced the pages in the folder.

As he did so, a breeze suddenly blew through the room, ruffling the manuscript as it lay in the cabinet. Spooked, Darkus swiftly closed the drawer and looked around to locate the source of the disturbance. There were no windows in the room. Feeling his heart rate rise as the catastrophizer whirred to life, he scanned the room, then chastised himself, seeing an air-conditioning vent discreetly blowing from the corner of the ceiling.

He took a breath and continued to search the folder, finding a typed letter at the back that read:

Dear Mr. Beecham,

Please find enclosed the manuscript for my debut book, tentatively titled “
The Code
.” I look forward to your thoughts.

Yours sincerely,

Ambrose Chambers

There was no address, and no signature.

Darkus replaced the letter, closed the drawer, and returned to the door. He checked that the coast was clear, then darted into the kitchen just as Chloe’s face appeared from her cubicle to check on him.

“Find everything okay?” she called out.

“Just fine, thanks,” he replied, holding up a Perrier water.

Moments later, Darkus waved good-bye to Chloe as he exited the revolving doors past employees smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk outside. As he wafted the smoke aside, his attention was drawn to the opposite building, a tall Victorian structure lined with windows.

He felt the catastrophizer hum to life again and quietly cursed it for haunting him so relentlessly. It had unnerved him for no reason in the file room, and now it was threatening to do an encore. He scanned the rows of windows overlooking him until something caught his attention: a glint in the sunlight. In fact there were
two
glints, side by side.

He squinted, narrowing his focus, and clearly saw a pair of binoculars watching him from an upper floor. They reflected again, accompanied by a brief flash of color, then vanished behind the windowsill.

Keeping the window in his peripheral vision, Darkus made a brief calculation of the number of floors, found a gap in traffic, and crossed the road. Several vehicles screeched to a halt, leaning on their horns as he narrowly made it to the other side.

He pushed through the lobby doors of the Victorian building and found himself in an upmarket gym. A muscle-bound receptionist flexed as he walked toward him, but Darkus darted up a narrow staircase.

“Hey!”

Darkus reached the third floor breathless, overtaking several large men in terry cloth robes. He looked around, seeing a fire exit at the end of the corridor. On instinct, he walked briskly toward it.

He knelt down, seeing something on the white floor tiles. He picked up what appeared to be an orange strand, then pushed through the fire exit into another stairwell. Darkus looked down to see a flash of orange descending the stairs at a high rate of speed. He instantly began his descent, two stairs at a time, tracking the flash of orange as it circled the stairs, continually one flight below him. As he arrived at the basement, an access door swung shut in front of him.

Darkus pushed through the access door to find a dark garage supported by concrete pillars, crammed with vehicles. He listened closely, hearing footsteps retreating into the foreboding darkness. Good sense told him to wait, but he kept following until the footsteps came to a halt and an apparition turned to face him—no more than a shape in the darkness.

“Tilly, you don’t have to run anymore. I know it’s you,” Darkus said to the shape.

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” The shape emerged from the darkness to reveal Tilly in her black leather jacket and leggings, her hair an interesting shade of orange. How she had managed to change its color again and still track him across London was beyond Darkus’s powers of comprehension.

“Why are you following me, Tilly?”

“Because your dad wasn’t straight with me,” she said defiantly, silhouetted against a flickering fluorescent light.

“About what?”

“About what happened to my mom.”

“It was six years ago,” he contended. “The investigation said it was an accident.”

“I’m not interested in what the investigation said. I’m interested in the
truth
.”

“She was the closest thing Dad had to a partner.”

“That’s why they killed her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Her car left the road during an ice storm—”

“I’m talking about the Combination.”

“You’re not supposed to know about that.”

“I know a lot more than you think. I’m going to help you find them.”

“I don’t need a partner, Tilly.”

“Fine. Then you won’t need this.” She took something from her jacket and walked under the fluorescent light, revealing an almost maniacal smile. She was holding a manila envelope.

“What is it?” asked Darkus, curiosity getting the better of him.

She tossed the envelope to him. He peered inside and then slid out a neatly color-coded folder containing a series of printouts: web pages, social-network profiles, online searches. “Those two cops who took your dad’s precious hard drive,” she explained. “I tracked them down. They’re not local, they’re Special Constables—they’re volunteers. I know how to find them.”

“How?” said Darkus.

She shrugged. “You just have to know where to look.”

“Like you found
me
, I suppose.”

“That was simple. I overheard you talking about
The Code
. Chambers is MIA. The next logical port of call was his literary agent.”

Darkus nodded. She’d followed his train of thought exactly. He leafed through the pages, then stopped. “There’s no address here.”

“That’s right,” she replied. “It’s an Internet Protocol address.”

“Of course,” said Darkus. “An
online
address—a set of numbers leading to a precise geographic location.”

“A-plus,” said Tilly. “And you don’t get it until you agree to fully cooperate.”

“With what?”

“With
me
. We’re after the same thing. The only difference is, I don’t trust anyone. Not even you. And whoever’s responsible for my mom’s death—I don’t want them brought to justice, I just want them
dead
.”

Darkus couldn’t deny he was impressed by her resolve, even though it wasn’t exactly conducive to calm, reasoned investigation.

“And why should I trust you?” he asked.

“Because you don’t have a choice. One call to Social Services and I could make a world of trouble for you, and you know it,” she warned. “Or we can work together. Like your dad and my mom did.”

“By all accounts, your mother was a brilliant woman,” Darkus said, examining her doubtfully.

“I know that,” Tilly said, biting her lip—something Darkus had seen her do before when she was under stress. Her eyes suddenly welled up, but she controlled them. “Maybe some of it rubbed off.”

“You’re resourceful,” he admitted, “if lacking some of the qualities of a seasoned investigator.”

“Like what?”

“Patience. A firm rein on your emotions.”

“Don’t underestimate emotions. You and your dad could use some.”

“Emotions are unpredictable,” Darkus answered. “We’re disciples of reason.”

“Evil can’t always be reasoned with.”

Darkus nodded, realizing she could be right.

“Look, I’ve only got a matter of hours before Dad realizes I’ve gone AWOL. If we’re done negotiating, can we get out of here? I’m not getting any younger.”

Chapter 11

Prelude to a Clue

Darkus used the secure phone to email Tilly’s tip-off to Uncle Bill, then led her by Tube to his father’s office. On the way, he gave her a brief account of his investigation into
The Code
and the strange occurrences surrounding it—much of which she had already pieced together from her own research. She absorbed the rest of the information with a minimum of expression, aside from the intermittent readjustment of her hair.

Darkus concluded his account by counseling against a rush to judgment on the supernatural qualities of the book. However, Tilly confessed that she was quite open-minded when it came to paranormal phenomena, and in fact the five senses would never be enough to account for every unexplained incident in the world. Darkus resolved to prove his point with hard evidence, as and when it presented itself.

As dusk fell, they arrived at 27 Cherwell Place, and Darkus rang on the narrow blue door. On cue, Bogna’s voice came through the intercom.

“Knightley Investigations, hello?”

“It’s Doc,” he replied, and the door buzzed open.

Having thought she’d seen enough ghosts for one week, Bogna beheld Tilly and did another double take. “
Mój Boże
, it is . . .”

“Tilly.” She extended her hand. “Nice to meet you again.”

“
Mój Boże
. . . ,” Bogna repeated, shaking her head in amazement. She tied the strings of her apron and asked Darkus, “I make extra round of sandwich, yes?”

Darkus nodded. “How’s Dad?”

“They bring him in his taxi-car. He upstair now. He hasn’t made a peeps. Not even when I give him bed bath.”

“I’d like to see him.”

Bogna led Darkus upstairs to his father’s office, where Knightley’s unconscious form was laid out on the sofa, still wrapped in the tartan blanket. His motionless face was raised to the heavens, his jaw proud and composed, his chest heaving and falling at regular intervals. His brow was furrowed, as if the inner workings of his mind were engaged in a conundrum that required every last reserve of his power—even having stolen the use of his body.

Darkus felt the familiar sick feeling in his stomach and went to rest his hand on Knightley’s shoulder. His dad felt warm but inert—just as he had for those four long years.

Tilly watched quietly from a distance, unsure how to react.

Bogna stomped in carrying a large TV, which she set up on a chair by the sofa.

“I make it as homely as possibles.” She plugged it in, then slapped her hand against her forehead, remembering something. “The book you ask for—I have.” She exited the room, returning moments later with a shopping bag.

“Is that what I think it is?” asked Tilly.

Darkus reached inside and took out a fresh copy of
The Code
. “I had to purchase it at random,” he explained, “in order to validate the test.”

“What test?” said Tilly.

“Well, first I’m going to read it. And then so are you,” he said calmly. “At the first sign of madness, the sensible party must restrain the insensible one until the police arrive.”